Gas mask still in place, she kicked a wheezing, bloody-eyed Nazi away from the desk and snatched up the transmitter. “This is Magpie,” she shouted in French through the muffled snout. “MAGPIE IS LISTENING, COPY, PLEASE!”

A silence far too lengthy, far too heavy with uneven static. One of the dying Gestapo officers reached out for her ankle, but she stomped on his hand as hard as she could. Blood spurted from his mouth; he didn’t move again.

The radio crackled with a fresh transmission. “Magpie, I read you.” Simone sounded like she was in tears. “Over.”

Evangeline clutched the transmitter to her chest like it was a precious gem. “I need you to use a new encryption scheme. Use—” Her heart thudded. “Use the street number of the last place we went. Over and out.”

Le Monocle. A heavy gamble. But it had to work—the Gestapo was still listening, somewhere. She spun the number dial to shift her own encryption frequency to match Le Monocle’s street address.

“Are you here?” Evangeline asked, tossing all protocol aside.

“Reading you. It’s a bit muffled. Do I even want to know—”

“No.” She laughed, manic. “My God, no. You’re . . . you’re alive—”

“You’re on our side,” Simone countered.

In the background, a man spoke in English. “This is great and all, but we really need—”

“Right.” Simone shifted to English as well. “Magpie, we’re inside Wewelsburg. It’s a war zone right now. German forces and—and something I can’t even explain. But we’ve been compromised. We need a way out of Wewelsburg. We need the entire Wehrmacht off our ass—”

“I’m afraid your network’s been blown,” Evangeline said. “Georges-Yves—he gave them everything, the encryption scheme, all of it.”

There was no missing Simone’s Arabic swearing.

“But right now I have something even better available to me,” Evangeline said. “If you can trust me, all right?”

“Yes,” Simone said in a rush. “Please, yes.”

“All right. Don’t go anywhere. Keep the line open. I’ll update you as soon as I can. Be safe until then,” Evangeline said.

“Je t’aime,” Simone muttered. Or something that sounded like it. Evangeline’s heart skipped a beat.

“W-what did you say?” Evangeline asked.

“I said you’re stubborn and resourceful and goddamned mad, and I couldn’t be more grateful,” Simone said. “Now hurry the fuck up.”

Evangeline did.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

DANIEL

He’d told Liam to stay away, so of course the idiot had come barging in, pulling down half the shadow realm around him. If Daniel weren’t so damned in love, he’d be furious. But in love or not, the monsters were here, and the Nazis had more control than ever.